


A Borrower of the Night

by tuesdaysgone



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-08
Updated: 2012-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-01 14:23:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesdaysgone/pseuds/tuesdaysgone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a curse causes Frank and Gerard to switch powers, Frank takes things a step too far, while Gerard scrambles to break it before he loses Frank and Frank loses his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Borrower of the Night

**Author's Note:**

> For Bandom Reverse Big Bang 2012 Mix #7: SUPER by kisforkurama.
> 
> I've wanted to write a superhero AU for years, and this mix was a perfect opportunity. The story it was telling me was one about being different, about feeling alone. About needing your enemies and needing your friends. About saving others and letting them save you. I decided to do that through my favorite characters, ones I see as two sides of the superhero coin: Batman and Superman. Plot and characters all belong to DC Comics. fleurdeliser and tabula_x_rasa were amazingly helpful with notes and beta throughout; I couldn't have done this without them, so thank you! And thank you kisforkurama for a great, great mix.

_Prologue. Like valour's minion, Carv'd out his passage._

“Superman approaching Arkham. Watchtower, report,” Gerard says into his transmitter. He’d been on the satellite only minutes before, true, but with Arkham inmates involved it was always wise to expect the unexpected. 

“Flash is approaching from the road,” J’onn’s voice crackles in his ear. “Batman’s closing in from downriver. No change in status.”

Gerard hovers at the gates to the drawbridge, the Flash pulling to a stop next to him and asking, “Three Leaguers this time, what’ve we got? Better be good, I had a date.”

“She can thank me later, Gabe,” Frank’s voice cuts in dryly. “Though three of us is probably overkill. Just a couple of Professor Strange’s drugged-up goons who cut a deal with a crooked guard.”

“You in the Batsub, Frankie?” Gerard asks him.

“Nah. Hovercraft. Make yourself useful and do a flyover of the woods on the mainland. I’ll pull up downstream and quarter in from the other side.”

“And me?” Gabe asks.

“Stay where you are,” Frank twits him, and Gabe makes an annoyed noise. 

“Why don’t you circle around the Asylum upstream in case they’re trying to be smart and double back?” Gerard suggests, and Gabe’s off in a flash of red and gold.

“You overestimate Hugo’s taste in goons, Gee,” Frank tells him as Gerard flies toward the woods, scanning for bodies with his x-ray vision. 

“Just trying to be prepared,” Gerard murmurs.

Frank chuckles. “Always a boy scout.” He’s cut off by the roar of a motor, and Gerard swoops low through the trees to see two men fleeing on all-terrain vehicles.

“Frankie -” he says.

“On it. Get the leader.” 

Gerard swoops down and wraps his arms around the lead rider, sweeping him off the ATV. The second goon takes evasive action to avoid the skidding vehicle of the first, and a Batarang cord clotheslines him and sends him crashing to the ground. Gerard comes in for a landing and deposits his armful next to the prisoner already on the ground. Frank pulls a capsule from his belt that shoots a net over them both. It crackles faintly with static electricity when they struggle, though they’re not doing much of that. 

Gerard can hear the Watchtower dimly in his transmitter reporting their coordinates to the Arkham guards, and Gabe skids to a halt next to Frank a scant second later, already giving Frank crap for making him miss all the fun. 

“You were too slow,” Frank teases him.

“You were too rough, Batman,” Gerard says with a frown, inspecting the prisoner downed by the Batarang cord. “This man has five broken ribs.”

“Bet he still looks better than the Gotham drugstore clerk he beat up,” Frank grumbles. Because of course Frank knows exactly who this goon is and why he’s in Arkham. Gerard lets it go, because they’ve had that argument too many times, and the guards are pulling up in their containment truck.

“Rendezvous back at the Watchtower,” a new voice speaks in their ears. Wonder Woman, Gerard realizes. If she’s on the satellite something must be going on. “You three need to debrief, and we may have a situation in Washington.”

“There’s always a situation in Washington,” Gabe grumbles. 

“Guess you’ll have to push that date back even further,” Gerard says mildly, heading into orbit without checking to see if the others are following. Flash will, he knows. 

He’s hoping Batman will, too. They haven’t had a chance to talk face to face in ages. He wonders whether Frank will wear a mask, a scowl or a grin.

Gerard’s pretty sure he shouldn’t admit he’d welcome any of the three. As long as Frank’s there.

 

_i. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires._

Gerard moves through the crush of people at the gallery opening, his customary slouch belying the strength he hides under ill-fitting clothing and nervous tics. He’s the world’s greatest actor - but that’s the point, isn’t it? Because he’s not from this world at all. 

Either of these worlds. With his super-hearing, he can pick up every salacious bit of gossip, crooked business deal, and clandestine assignation whispered within the walls of this decadent cocktail bash - and beyond, if he’s being truthful. But it’s the party he’s focusing on for now. Because it’s the party he’s supposed to be writing up for the _Daily Planet _. He’s still annoyed that Jeff put him on the society beat this week - he’d been late to the staff meeting, yeah. But it had been because he’d been putting down a swarm of something akin to robotic locusts - Jimmy had gotten the scoop on _that___ story - and while even Jeff wouldn’t have denied it was a valid excuse, it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that would help him keep his cover, either.

So here he is, mingling with a roomful of people whose eyes slide right by his slumped shoulders and twitchy hands. Eavesdropping, if he must admit it, on Frank.

Frank’s the life of the party. Only fair, really, because it’s in his honor. All the _stuff_ on display, this roomful of the random, the fascinating, the _priceless_ \- it’s all his. The Metropolis branch of the Iero Foundation had arranged this traveling exhibit, and all the money from this $500-a-plate dinner and the charity auction later on is going straight to some foundation womanizing-businessman-Frankie-Iero probably took pains to hide that he selected personally.

Not that Gerard can put that in his article. Not that lowly reporter Gerard Way is supposed to know anything at all about the Iero Industries heir besides the proper point headline for anything with his name attached.

Gerard supposes bemoaning the exhibit’s omission of the animatronic dinosaur Frank keeps in the Batcave would be blowing Frank’s cover, too.

Frank’s had nearly as long to perfect his cover as Gerard has had to create bumbling Gerard Way, _Planet_ reporter. Frank’s a pretty great actor when he tries to be. Right now he seems content, sipping a flute of champagne with gorgeous shiny-haired girls flanking him on either side, but Gerard knows how little he wants to be here. Most of his mind is probably back in Gotham right now. Gerard is supposed to be in Gotham right now - Frank had made him promise he’d monitor the Gotham City crime beat when he’d found out he had to travel for this gallery opening, and Frank is going to be pissed Gerard has left Gotham undefended. 

Undefended by Superman and Batman, anyway. They’ve argued about it more than once, this obsession that Frank has with clearing the scum off the streets of Gotham - or wherever he finds himself. It’s not going to bring his parents back. Not that Gerard knows what it feels like to lose your family so young, like Frank had - he’d always had Ma and Pa Way, and of course he has his sister Mikey. Never mind that she’s been off training with Alicia and the rest of the Amazons on Themyscira. She’s always had Gerard’s back. 

Frank has people watching his back, too. Gerard’s not sure anything’s going to happen in Gotham in a twelve-hour period that Ray can’t handle from the Batcave, especially not with Alicia and Mikey and the rest of the Justice League only a distress call away. And Gerard is paying attention too - he’s forced to admit Frank himself is his biggest distraction. As always.

He’s not sure how he likes Frank best, clean and scrubbed and dressed to the nines - Gerard daydreams of loosening that tie and tugging Frank close just to see what he would do - or dressed head to toe in formfitting black, a mischievous smirk on his cowled face at the end of a mission asking to be kissed away. He’s not sure it matters. He won’t do either.

Gerard’s scribbling notes in his little moleskine and trying to ignore the suggestion one of Frank’s companions is currently whispering in Frank’s ear when he first notices the woman - black dress, sharp pixie haircut, admittedly nondescript in this crowd except for the exceptionally blank look on her face, and the jerky way she’s moving through the crowd, almost as if she were sleepwalking - or mind-controlled. She’s making her way across the room with an expressionless haste that pings every one of Gerard’s senses at once. 

His body already on high alert, he rushes off to change, which puts him halfway across the room. He’s much farther away than Frank, who’s standing next to a podium that holds an assortment of small items like jewelry and little sculptures, and who clearly sees the same thing Gerard does, because he stops her and tries to start a conversation. He sees _Gerard_ approaching when they’re no more than a few arm’s lengths apart and his expression goes stormy for a moment before several things happen in quick succession. The woman reaches for one of the display items, Frank reaches out to stop her, and she screams suddenly, ear-splittingly triumphant and terrible and most of all, filled with magic.

Gerard’s reaching automatically for Frank when the sonic shock wave hits him, and he staggers back, losing his feet and for one horrible moment his vision as well. He hears rather than sees the chandeliers and the skylights explode, and when he blinks back to awareness the entire room is buried under drifts of broken glass. 

Rising from the wreckage like the wraith she is, Banshee grins her death’s head grin at him. “Mine, mine, it’s mine!” 

Gerard moves automatically to stop her, but she’s abnormally solid and he’s abnormally slow, and his blows never quite connect. He tries anyway, blocking her blows and trying to shield the partygoers around him from stray blasts of magic. He’s steadily losing ground until with a sudden jerk her arm is arrested mid-gesture by - a Batarang cord. Gerard looks up and sees Frank bearing down on them in costume. He’d never even seen Frank slip away, but the shadows love Frank nearly as much as he loves them. 

Banshee turns on him with a scream and a _push_ of power, and Frank ducks as a display case explodes beside him - no, he’s _falling_ , crumpling to the ground. Gerard moves towards him with a shout but the Banshee intercepts, blasting him again and sending him sinking to the the ground clutching his head before she shoots off into the night, cackling wildly. 

Both of them in the same place... and they still lost. Something terrible has happened here. Gerard doesn’t wait for the chaos to subside or for Metropolis PD to show up, he just gathers Frank to his chest and launches them both out the ruined skylight, shoots off to Gotham as fast as he can fly.

 

_ii. Art not without ambition; but without the illness should attend it._

Ray is waiting with a tray full of medical implements when Gerard gets them back to the Batcave. Gerard deposits Frank onto the waiting cot and steps back to let Ray get to work cutting away the damaged Batsuit, rinsing away the worst of the blood and starting the delicate process of tweezing out slivers of thick plate glass and stitching the wounds. Gerard steps out of his way and paces nervously, trying not to let his gaze linger too long on the tattoos he never gets to see as they disappear again behind a patchwork of gauze.

“Are you secretly psychic, Ray?” he asks, to occupy himself. “It would explain a lot, you know.”

Ray laughs nervously. “The proximity alarm and the Batsuit sensors were enough to give me the basic information, Gerard. The rest of our preparedness is just unfortunate familiarity with the kinds of ways Frank likes to injure himself. I just don’t understand how this happened; the suit fibers should have protected against -”

“Magic?” a voice rasps. It’s Frank, fighting back into consciousness and grimacing at the touch of Ray’s fingers on the last bandage.

“Leave that alone,” Ray reprimands him as Frank fusses with a piece of surgical tape. “Gerard, can you use your x-ray vision to check that I’ve been thorough enough?”

Gerard turns and focuses his gaze on Frank’s chest. “No,” he says wonderingly after a moment. “It’s not...working. Why isn’t it -” The magic must have been stronger than he thought. Something is very wrong here.

“It doesn’t matter,” Frank says in a strange voice from where he’s sat up on the cot. “I’m healed anyway.” Gerard’s eyes fly to Frank’s chest, where he’s peeled away the largest piece of gauze. Ray’s protesting noise is still ringing through his ears when he sees - they both see - that the expanse of skin underneath is completely unblemished by stitches, wounds, or even scars. Like Frank had never been hurt.

Gerard turns away to pace, feeling unaccountably nervous. “We need help,” Gerard says. “Magical help. I’m calling Greta.”

“Do what you want,” Frank says, his voice muffled. When Gerard turns back around, he sees Ray frowning by the cot and Frank pulling on an undamaged Batsuit. “I’m going back out on patrol.”

There’s really nothing Gerard can do to stop Frank once he’s made up his mind about something, so he just sighs and heads for the skies, back to Metropolis. Gerard Way has a doozy of an article to write about the Iero Foundation benefit for tomorrow’s _Planet_. He’s still thinking about how to spin the sudden disappearance of Frank Iero from his own party when the earth swims underneath him and he realizes he’s not flying any more - he’s plummeting.

*

“We need to talk,” Frank says. He’s hovering - literally - next to Gerard’s balcony. His eyes have a faint red glow. It’s like looking into a mirror, except it’s gut-wrenching rather than familiar, because Gerard is still dazed from his fall from the sky earlier. 

He’d had just enough control to land somewhere where he wouldn’t do permanent damage - to someone else. He’s still not sure yet if he’d have been able to do permanent damage to himself, and he’s not really eager to find out. Frank had showed up a few hours later. Flying.

“Come in here, Frank,” Gerard tells him, stepping back into his apartment and tightening the belt of his bathrobe.

“Invulnerability. Super-hearing,” Frank continues, coming in for a landing on Gerard’s balcony. “X-ray vision. Heat vision. Fucking _flying_ , Gerard, what does this sound like to you?”

“It sounds like my powers,” Gerard says obediently, as this is clearly the answer that is expected.

“It sounds like your powers,” Frank repeats. “It made for a real fucking interesting patrol tonight.” His voice is a curious mix of smug and confused. And Frank Iero, Gerard knows, does not like being confused. He continues, “The real question, Superman, is how did I end up with your powers?”

“No,” Gerard says.

“No?” Frank crosses his arms over the bat symbol on his chest. 

“No. The real question is, how did you end up with my powers while I ended up with yours?”

“I don’t have - oh,” Frank cuts himself off.

“Exactly.” Gerard walks into his kitchenette and tops off his coffee, waving the pot at Frank. “Coffee, Frank?” Frank takes a cup of coffee, but he crosses his arms over his chest again and manages to look disapproving as he drinks it. Gerard refrains from shaking his head, but just barely. 

Frank sits the cup down in the sink and looks Gerard over critically. “You don’t have any -”

“Nothing,” Gerard tells him. “They all went, one by one.” He spreads his arms mockingly. “How do you like your Superman now?”

“How do you?” Frank retorts. “Isn’t this what you always wanted?”

Gerard steps closer, making use of the extra few inches he has on Frank to look him straight in the eye. “Isn’t it what you always wanted?”

Frank turns away first. “And if I asked you to show me how they work?” He’s pacing now, cape swishing.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Frank? We need to talk to someone, try to figure out what’s going on and if we can fix it.”

“While I can be out on the streets putting them to _use_ , Gerard?”

He’s not going to change his mind. Frank’s the most doggedly stubborn person Gerard has ever met. “Come with me to the Fortress. We’ll train.” Gerard crosses to his bedroom for a fresh costume. He may have lost his powers - _become normal_ , his brain whispers - but he feels better when he’s wearing it.

*

Gerard steps up to the pile of training bots and pokes it with a booted toe. “You’ve been busy.” 

He’d spent hours coaching Frank on the uses of his newly-acquired powers - Gerard’s powers - and then left him to practice on the bots while he made a few calls to the JLA and their friends. From the looks of the debris littering the main chamber of the Fortress of Solitude, Frank’s an even quicker study than Gerard had expected. He should have known. Frank’s formidable enough without powers.

Superpowered, he’s well on his way to terrifying. Not that Gerard can tell him that. 

Frank rounds the pile of debris and tosses a robot arm on top of the heap. “Sorry about the mess, Gerard. Iero Tech can build you some more bots.”

“Not what I’m worried about right now. I’ve been making some calls. We should have -”

“Help on the way?” It’s Greta’s voice. She picks her way down the stairs in her customary tailcoat and fishnets, whisking a parka off a hook and wrapping it around herself. “Help is here, if I don’t freeze first.” 

“Thanks for coming, Greta,” Gerard says.

“Anything for you, Gerard,” she says. “Frankie.” She offers him a quirky little smile. “This is a new one for you. Never fear, I’m on the case.”

“Greta.” Frank’s eyeing her a little sideways. He’s always been both fascinated and mistrustful of her family of magicians, but they don’t really have time for this.

“Magical problems, magical solutions,” Gerard tells him. 

Greta smiles. “And Ray’s been my lovely assistant on the research end of things. I have a name for you. Cawdor.”

“Like Macbeth?” Gerard’s reaching out and typing a search query into the Fortress’s computer as she talks. 

“The same. Legend also says the Brooch of Cawdor is reputed to provide the possessor with his heart’s desire.”

“So when Banshee and I fought over it... it gave me Gerard’s superpowers? Why’d he lose his?” Frank asks.

“You’re applying logic to magic again,” Greta laughs.

Frank’s still eyeing Gerard. “Maybe he did get his heart’s desire. You’ve always wanted a normal life, Gerard Way.” His lip curls faintly.

It hurts, like the truth often does. And it _is_ the truth, at least as far as Frank knows it. 

Frank doesn’t have the first idea what Gerard really wants. And logic doesn’t apply to feelings any better than it does to magic.

Greta looks between the two of them, a tiny frown line forming on her forehead. “I’ll keep working on it, don’t worry.”

“Take your time,” Frank says. “I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.”

 

_iii. How goes the world, sir, now?_

Gerard finds plenty to keep him busy, too. He finds himself missing his powers constantly, like phantom limbs with all the accompanying phantom sensations. He does everything he can to help Greta research. He talks to Mikey. He turns in his articles before deadline.

He talks to Ray every day. Ray’s worried about Frank, even though he won’t come right out and say it. “He’s been studying the bats,” Ray tells him over the phone. “Says echolocation helps him focus the superhearing. I say whatever keeps him still. He’s running Commissioner Cavallo ragged with the number of perps he’s dumping off at precincts across the city. If there’s anything you can say to just get him to _sleep_ for a few hours....”

“If he won’t listen to you, I doubt he’ll listen to me,” Gerard tells Ray regretfully.

He needs a break, so he lets himself out onto the _Planet_ building’s roof and watches the city. His city. It looks clean from up here. Shiny, and silent, and constantly in motion like a well-oiled machine. Nothing like Gotham. He’s made this possible. And it’s only a matter of time before Luthor or some other astute adversary figures out they haven’t seen Superman around for a while and hatches some sort of evil plan.

Of course, from the headlines Gerard reads - and occasionally writes - it doesn’t even matter, because Batman is everywhere these days. Gerard hasn’t spent much time on the satellite base himself, but from what he’s heard from other members of the Justice League Frank won’t answer the Watchtower’s calls. Gerard has heard stories, though. They all have. Everyone’s heard about the damage Batman did to warlords in the Congo, about the ruthless takedown of a group of crooked investors in Southeast Asia. 

Frank was ruthless before; he’s become infinitely more dangerous, and Gerard’s worried. 

What’s more, he’s jealous.

Mikey finds him staring out over the rooftops of Metropolis, lunch uneaten beside him. “Brooding on rooftops, Gee?” she asks, red boots hovering just a few inches above the ledge where Gerard’s sitting. “You sure this power swap wasn’t a personality swap too?”

Gerard laughs, and she floats in for a landing and sits down beside him. A fold of her cape drapes itself over his hand, and he rubs it between his fingers mindlessly. “I’m not sure about anything these days, Mikes.”

“I wish I had something to say, but you were always better with human things than I was, Gee.”

“I’m just glad you came to see me,” Gerard tells her. “I didn’t know how... lonely this would be. Is this how humans feel all the time?”

“You mean, is this how Frank feels?” Mikey crosses her arms over the “S” on her chest and the corners of her mouth turn down slightly. “You know Frank as well as I do, Gee -” 

_Better,_ Gerard contradicts mentally. 

“And if he’s lonely, he brought it on himself. Come on, Gerard, snap out of it. What else can you do right now? Greta and Ray are still working, right? In the meantime, even without powers you’re still _you_.” She kisses him on the cheek and stands up. “Gotta go, bro. I skipped out on a training session to come visit, don’t want to piss Alicia off too much.” She launches herself into the sky and is gone in a bolt of blue and red while Gerard’s still shuddering at the image of a pissed-off Amazon.

Gerard can still hear Mikey’s voice in his head as he shuffles down the block later that afternoon for a coffee. _You’re still you._ He kicks a chunk of concrete, watches as it caroms off his toe and skitters into the mouth of an alley. Then he squints harder at a flash of movement back in the shadows.

“No, please,” a voice says, high, frightened.

Another voice answers in a growl. Gerard’s moving in that direction before he can think twice about it. He rounds a dumpster and surprises a tough holding a slim guy with a lip ring at gunpoint. 

“Better turn around,” the bruiser barks. “This ain’t your business.”

“That’s what you think,” Gerard retorts, advancing. The tough turns on him, and the smaller guy skids and slips trying to get as far away from the gun as he can while it’s pointed elsewhere. Gerard’s still looking in his direction when there’s a spat of gunfire and he feels a sudden wash of icy cold. 

He looks down.

_Gunshots never felt like this before,_ he thinks muzzily to himself as he slips to the ground. Then he can’t feel anything at all.

 

_iv. There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out._

He sees them when he wakes like some sort of mythological frieze: Wonder Woman, Supergirl, the magician’s daughter. They’re talking amongst themselves, radiating anger - Furies. When Gerard tries to sit up and makes a pained noise they change in a flash - Graces, sorrowful ones. He’s had them worried. Perhaps not just him.

“Gee,” Mikey says, flinging herself across the room to sit on the edge of his bed, all legs as always. Greta follows, tugging off one white glove to take his hand and squeeze. Alicia stays at the door, arms crossed across her breastplate, vigilant as always. But she smiles too.

“Welcome back,” she says.

“What happened?” Gerard has identified his surroundings now - the Watchtower, one of the medical bays. He wonders how they got him here. He wonders how they found him.

“You’re lucky I was keeping an eye on you, bro,” Mikey says. “Alicia and I came as fast as we could, but it was almost too late.”

“You couldn’t have maybe refrained from getting shot until I could figure out the spell?” Greta asks. 

“It took the Watchtower tech and Greta’s magic to keep you alive,” Alicia tells him seriously. “I understand your urge to protect innocents, friend, but maybe that price is a little high?”

“I’d do it again,” Gerard says. “I saved a life. Isn’t that what we’re here for?”

“You sound like him,” Mikey says with a small frown. “Except he usually says it the other way around.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” another voice says. 

Frank. Standing in the doorway like a statue, looking like he’d sucked all the shadows from the room. Gerard doesn’t miss how Alicia shifts, wristlets gleaming as she drops her hands to her sides. Battle ready. Something’s going on.

“I see you got at least one of the messages we’ve sent you lately,” Alicia says to Frank with a frown. “Figures this would be the one you’d pay attention to.”

“I’ve been working,” he answers. “Someone’s got to put these powers to use.”

“You’ve been doing more than that, from what we hear,” says Mikey.

Frank scowls. “I’ve been doing more than Gerard ever has. How many times do you really have to stop and have an existential crisis in a week, Gee?”

“How many times do you stop to think?” Alicia retorts.

“Stop,” Gerard says, struggling to sit up and wincing at the pull of his healing wounds. “Frank. Alicia. That’s enough.”

Frank folds his arms across the bat symbol on his chest. “No, you’re wrong about that. It’s _never_ going to be enough. I knew I was wasting my time here.”

That hurts. “If that’s how you feel....” _Don’t go._

“I’ll go.” He’s gone with a swirl of black fabric.

*

They send him back to his apartment to recuperate - the meddling Graces. Even fully human, even wounded, Gerard, as it turns out, chafes at being powerless. He goes to Gotham.

“Glad to see you on your feet,” Ray tells him when he lets him down into the Batcave. Greta’s there already, coattails swishing as she paces. She’s studying a map Ray’s pulled up on the big viewscreen.

“What’s this?” Gerard asks. 

“Map of magical activity,” Greta tells him. “Ray wrote a computer program to analyze the data I could give him. We’re using it to track Banshee.” She winks at Ray, who turns ever so slightly red.

Ray sits down at the keyboard and starts typing key commands in some language Gerard can’t read. Greta bends over his shoulder and squints at a readout at the bottom of the screen, and after a while points. “Stop. There. Calibrate on that one.” Ray nods, hair bobbing slightly with the movement. “Got her!” Greta claps white-gloved hands together, and a few sparks shoot out. She’s smiling.

“I want to go,” Gerard says. Ray pushes back from the console and stands up, grinning.

“I thought you might say that.” Ray crosses the Batcave to a panel and punches in a code. When the metal door slides back, Gerard can see a suit inside. It looks like one of Frank’s suits at first, same black material, tall boots, and armor-paneled greaves. Then he sees the familiar “S” symbol on the chest.

“How’d you know -”

“I know you, Gerard,” Ray says. “It’s just like his suit. Strongest material Iero Tech could develop. If you want to go with Greta, you’ll be as safe as he would be.”

Gerard changes out of his civilian clothes, and Ray’s right - he does feel safe as soon as the suit hits his skin. He runs his hand over his arm. The armored greave feels just like Frank’s under his fingers. Gerard can almost imagine... No. That’s a bad idea.

Greta’s making notes from the screen when he re-emerges, but Ray is waiting nearby. “Have you heard from him lately?” Gerard asks quietly.

Ray shakes his head. “He hasn’t been back here for days. I think he finally figured out that he needed the sun to strengthen his powers. You heard what happened out there?”

Gerard nods. Alicia and Mikey had tracked Frank down in orbit after he’d nearly killed Bane in a takedown in South America. They’d had some sort of fight - presumably spurred by the same argument they’d been having for weeks - and Frank had somehow sent them both limping back to Earth. They’d gone back to Themyscira to regroup. Gerard misses them, even though he feels like this is all his fault. 

“It’s not your fault,” Ray says, and Gerard startles.

“Psychic,” he accuses Ray yet again.

Ray’s mouth twists in a funny little smile. “I know you,” he repeats. “I know you, and I know him. It’s sort of funny how alike you are sometimes. Always ready to accept responsibility for everything. Never slowing down.” It won’t happen. Neither of them are made that way. “It just means that to help, the rest of us have to do our best to keep up,” Ray finishes.

“You are the best,” Gerard tells him. His thoughts flash for a moment to Alicia and Mikey, then his eyes track to Greta, who’s waiting by the door. “Let’s go finish this.” 

Greta links her arm through Gerard’s and they make their way downtown to the Gotham entrance of the Oblivion Bar. Gerard’s the target of half a dozen unfriendly stares as soon as they walk in the place, and he braces himself to fight. He’s not disappointed. Several magical goons decide to take a swing at him as the bartender watches, bored. He’s thanking Ray’s Superbat suit before they’re done.

They’re done when Greta decides they’re done. “ezeerF, speerc!” she yells, and the spell obligingly freezes them in place. She pushes past them toward a cloaked figure in a corner booth.

“This is normally where I’d say something witty, like, ‘You can run but you can’t hide, Banshee,’” Greta says in greeting. “But I’ll save the banter. What did you do to Superman and Batman?”

The figure lifts the hood off her head. Banshee it is, but Banshee in the borrowed body of the woman from the party. A body that’s ravaged by extreme old age. The Brooch of Cawdor gleams at her throat, and Gerard only just stops himself from grabbing at it.

“You want this, don’t you?” Banshee cackles. “Tracked me all the way here, Superman, you might as well take it. Steal from an old woman. I’d laugh, but I already know the curse is real. My face, look at my face....” She trails off into sobbing laughter, and it’s horrible to hear. 

“esaeleR reh, desruc hcoorb,” Greta mutters, then reaches out to pluck the Brooch from around Banshee’s neck. It gleams for a moment in her gloved hand, and then Banshee screams, collapsing back against the bench. Gerard leaps to catch her, and the figure that slumps into his arms is that of the young woman from the party.

“Interesting,” Greta says.

“Let’s go,” Gerard urges her, eyeing the other occupants of the bar nervously. Greta slips under the woman’s other arm and they half carry her from the bar.

Later, after they’ve returned to the Batcave, Greta places the Brooch on the table and she, Ray, and Gerard all stare at it for a moment. “It doesn’t look cursed,” Ray comments, but he pulls his newspaper a little farther away from it anyway.

“It doesn’t,” Greta agrees. “But I’ve got it figured out now. Whatever witch or wizard made it was very clever indeed. The books of learning call it a ‘parasite curse.’ I believe I’ve figured this one out, too. It gives you your heart’s desire - like Banshee’s desire to possess a beautiful human form once more - but takes back at the same time.”

“Making her human host age so fast,” Gerard says.

“Exactly.”

“What does that mean for me and Frank?”

“It means I know how to fix this. But we’ve got to get him back within range of the Brooch.”

*

Greta’s plan means Gerard finds himself slumped against a grimy stone wall in infamous Crime Alley, waiting while she paces back and forth and murmurs all sorts of arcane and incomprehensible things under her breath. Gerard can’t help staring at the cracked and stained pavement and picturing Frank kneeling there. Frank as a child, dark-eyed and frightened and alone.

He’s so caught up in his imaginings that he nearly misses the arrival of his Frank, swooping in like a bullet. He watches, helpless, as Greta’s spell snares him, as the shades of his dead parents assure him he’s saved the world - saved them at last.

Frank’s heart’s desire - to have the power to save the people he never could. Gerard wishes he could somehow freeze time and keep that look on his face, but he’s got a more sinister part to play.

“You’re done, Frank,” he says, stepping forward. “You’re done, and it’s time to switch back.” Frank’s body tenses immediately, the eyeholes of his mask locking on the item in Gerard’s hand. 

“Give that to me,” he sneers. “You shouldn’t have it. You got what you wanted! A normal life, no more superpowers to plague you. _Let me have this._ ” He lunges for the Brooch all of a sudden, all superhuman reflexes where Gerard is terribly, helplessly human. Gerard tries to resist anyway, and they’re locked in a struggle for one endless moment before the Brooch crunches under a black boot.

The crinkle of metal sounds like any common tin can. The alley is very quiet. Frank freezes, and in his instant of hesitation Greta is on him, pressing the true Brooch of Cawdor against his chest and crying out, “kaerB eht kcol fo erised dna eerf ym dneirf!” 

A noise this time like a clap of thunder over the moors, a terrible flash of sickly green light, and Gerard knows it’s done.

 

_v. The instruments of darkness tell us truths._

Maybe it makes Superman a coward, but Gerard can’t stay around to see what the Brooch of Cawdor has left of his friendship with Frank. Greta and Ray can do any explaining that needs to be done. He needs a moment away from Earth, from his refuge-turned-prison. He flies to the Watchtower, standing in the middle of a giant bay of windows and basking in the rays of the sun from orbit. He feels like himself again, but something is missing. Something’s always missing.

“I heard there was an alien moping around the Watchtower,” a voice says.

Of course it’s Frank. It’s always Frank.

“Haven’t seen J’onn lately, sorry.”

Frank steps up to the window next to him. The streaming sunlight catches and absorbs into the surface of his suit, making him shimmer briefly before Gerard’s heat vision adjusts. “J’onn doesn’t mope,” Frank says. “Are you waiting for me to say I’m sorry?”

Gerard snorts. “How long would I have to wait?”

Frank ignores him. “The Brooch was designed to play us for fools. And it did, for me. I nearly lost my mind. And you - you could have _died_.”

“I didn’t.”

“Because you have friends - family - who care about you. But it should have been me, Gerard. You always have my back. Even when you’ve _lost your powers_ you have my fucking back, and I pay you back by -”

“It was a curse, Frank. But here you are now, still convinced you could have done better. You’re -”

“Human?” Frank’s mouth twists below his cowl.

“I like you human,” Gerard says. “You were obsessed, Frank, and it was a fucking problem, but you were still obsessed with _justice._ Look down there, Frank. Earth keeps turning, and half of it is always in shadow. I can’t help loving that you care about things so much. You just….”

Frank’s watching him, always wary. “Say what you need to say.”

“Dark Knight,” Gerard whispers. “That’s what they call you.” But he can’t make himself go on.

“Gerard -”

He starts over. “The Brooch, it did more than make me human. It made me realize.... Frank, why do you think it could switch us like it did? You - you’re my other half. I know you probably don’t want to hear that, especially now. But I needed to say it.”

“The lesser half,” Frank says. 

Gerard cheats and uses his x-ray vision to see beneath the mask. He needs to see Frank’s face. “Never less. Different. The world needs us both. You need me as much as I need you.” Frank won’t like that.

Except he’s not denying it.

“I work alone,” Frank says finally.

“No you don’t,” Gerard replies. “Not anymore. You work with us.” Gerard’s gesture takes in himself and the Watchtower, standing in for their absent friends. “You just go home alone.” He’s got Ray, but Gerard’s trying to make a point here.

“Don’t you read your own society column?” Frank taunts, but it’s weak, and Gerard presses.

“You’re an even better actor than I am, Frank, but you can’t fool me. You always go home alone.” He pauses, steps closer. “But you don’t have to.” He can’t make it much clearer.

“You need me as much as I need you,” Frank repeats, slowly like he’s trying it out.

“That’s what I said.” He reaches out and lays a hand against the part of Frank’s cheek that’s exposed by the cowl. Frank can’t hide from him anyway.

Frank’s never tried.

Gerard bends his head. Frank is utterly still, but his lips are as soft as Gerard always imagined they’d be. After a moment, he sighs and opens his mouth to the kiss. Gerard pulls back after a moment, puts his hands on either side of the cowl, and pushes it back onto Frank’s shoulders. 

Frank’s eyes are already closed. Gerard closes his own as he bends back down. This time it’s Frank’s lips chasing his, pressed against him chest to toes as the Earth spins unhurriedly below.

 

_Epilogue. Live to be the show and gaze o' the time._

For all the ceaseless crime in Gotham, Metropolis has its share of excitement too. This time, it’s the Collector. His Terminauts have already reduced a large industrial complex - belonging to one of Luthor’s competitors, Gerard files away for later reference - to piles of smoking rubble by the time the Justice League turns the tide. The Terminauts are enough to rate the full League: Mikey and Alicia are airborne, along with Hawkman, Green Lantern and Gerard himself. J’onn and Greta are holed up in one of the surviving warehouses, with Gabe speeding between them and Green Arrow, who’s up a water tower picking off the Terminauts that Frank cripples with the guns on his Batjet. Ray’s back in Gotham, reeling off specs on the various robotic creatures into an open feed as he runs analyses on the Batcave’s supercomputer.

The only way to stop the Terminauts, as it turns out, is to upload a virus into their operating system. Which means getting close enough to access a data port. Gerard does it himself, and he’d be lying if he said he did it scientifically; he goes after the big ‘bot who brought the Batjet down, launching himself at the metal shoulders and toppling the frankensteined construction to access the chest ports.

They all crumple to the ground satisfyingly quickly after the virus uploads. The factory complex is probably a total loss, but the army’s already starting to move in to neutralize the fallen ‘bots and Gerard’s already airborne again, scanning the lot for Frank. Gerard knows he’s okay; he’d been cursing on the communicator no more than thirty seconds after the jet crashed, and the last Gerard had seen of him he’d taken cover with a rocket launcher.

The rest of the League is already starting to return to the Watchtower, with the exception of Green Lantern, who’s conferring with the C.O. of the army unit on the ground. It’s only been a few weeks since the kiss on the observation deck - weeks in which Gerard and Frank had only had a few moments in between missions and appearances, weeks in which even their own day jobs conspired to keep them cities apart. Gerard can’t think of anything he wants less than a debrief at the Watchtower. He grabs Frank and flies off in the opposite direction, taking them both to the Fortress of Solitude. Frank’s laughing by the time his boots hit the ground.

“This doesn’t look like the Watchtower,” Frank says. “Don’t tell me my favorite boy scout is skipping out on a debriefing?”

“Delaying,” Gerard tells him. “Temporarily. For reasons of, ah, team networking.”

“I am the only one here,” Frank points out.

“And we are going to -” Gerard stops, lips twitching. He can’t actually say it with a straight face.

Frank, of course, has no problem in that area, but his lips are already curved in a smirk. “They’re going to think I’m a bad influence.”

_They’re going to think I’m a good one,_ Gerard thinks. Frank’s still an asshole, and he’ll never be known as the most cooperative member of the League, but he laughs some now, more than he ever has. “So be one,” Gerard invites.

Frank tugs off his cowl, removes his gloves, and takes a step forward. Gerard stands and waits. Frank’s hands touch his chest, fingers splaying over the “S” for a moment before traveling upwards, curling around the back of Gerard’s neck and sinking into his hair. “Thought you had apartments here,” Frank says against his lips.

“I do,” Gerard says, after a pause to kiss him for a while. It’s an ice cave, after all; the temperature doesn’t bother him as much as it would a human, but it’s easier to rest if he’s comfortable. And he wants Frank to be more than comfortable. He wants Frank naked and stretched out underneath him. “This way.”

Frank pulls back and follows Gerard into his suite of rooms. It’s small but cozy, and the Fortress computer has obligingly heated it up to suit Frank’s human body. Gerard would like to be doing a lot more with Frank’s human body, but the Batsuit is the next obstacle.

“You look like you’re thinking of the best way to rip my suit off,” Frank comments, hands hovering at his utility belt.

“Thinking about it,” Gerard admits.

“You can keep thinking about it, or you could do it. Or you could ask.”

He’ll ask. “Frankie. I need you.”

“Say it again,” Frank says, but he’s already making a fascinating little pile of uniform parts on a chair.

Gerard shakes himself and obeys. “I need you.”

“Gonna get you your own Batsignal,” Frank says, voice deep and soft. His cape hits the floor with a whoosh of material and displaced air.

“All you have to do is call for me,” Gerard tells him, hands working on his own suit. “I’ll hear you anywhere you are.”

He’s not sure who reaches for who first. He’s too busy staring at Frank, at every scar and tattoo and half-healed bruise that patterns Frank’s skin. The things Frank hides away. The things Frank’s showing him.

Frank tastes like smoke and copper. He’s supple and lithe when Gerard always fumbles, crashing into him and wrapping around him with reckless speed. He’s right, maybe. They never get to rest for long. But Gerard can’t bring himself to rush things this time. 

Then Frank leans in and nips at his jaw and their cocks slide together and okay, rushing might be a good idea after all. “Bed,” Gerard tells him, then thinks better of it and just deposits Frank there himself.

Frank moans when Gerard straddles his hips and leans down to lick into his mouth again. He runs a hand over Frank’s head, stroking the shell of Frank’s ear, lips moving across his cheek, down his jaw and his neck to suck at the place where his collarbones meet. “Gonna suck you now,” Gerard murmurs into the skin there, and feels the vibrations from the next moan. 

“You - Gee,” Frank says. “Fucking hell, please.” His own hands trace up and down Gerard’s arms, wrapping loosely around Gerard’s wrists when Gerard slides down his body. His dick is flushed hard and lying against the crease of his hip, and his stomach muscles jump as Gerard’s lips slide over them, finding the head of Frank’s cock and taking it gently in his mouth. 

Frank swears, and Gerard smiles, and one of Frank’s hands finds its way into Gerard’s hair as Gerard tongues at Frank’s slit, then swirls his tongue around the shaft a few times before sinking down the whole way. That gets him a throaty cry, full of something that might have been words if Frank had let them out from behind his teeth. He pulls off. “Want to hear you,” he tells Frank before taking him back in his mouth.

He tastes so good, sharp and salty, skin a silky drag against Gerard’s tongue. “Your mouth,” Frank mutters. “So hot, god. More, fuck, more.” The fingers of Frank’s hands clench and release in time with Gerard’s mouth, one hand in Gerard’s hair, one wrapped around his wrist. 

Gerard splays his free hand against Frank’s thigh, pushing his legs farther apart, thumb stroking back and forth against the smooth skin as he moves down to mouth around the base of Frank’s cock and suck on his balls a bit.

“Put your tongue in me,” Frank whispers, gravelly. “Or your fingers. Please, fuck.” Gerard laughs a little as he shoulders Frank’s thighs wide. Of course he’s demanding. Gerard fucking loves it. 

“How about my cock, Frank?” Gerard says, lips moving against Frank’s inner thigh. Frank’s hips hitch, and Gerard wraps his hand a little tighter around Frank’s thigh, nosing down to lick around Frank’s hole before pressing in with the tip of his tongue, once then again, and again, and again until he’s fucked him open, until his own spit is slicking Frank’s thighs and his own face.

“That - works -” Frank gasps. 

He’s squirming now, enough that Gerard has to move both hands to hold his hips still. Frank’s fingers are clenching and releasing over and over in Gerard’s hair, and he’s started repeating Gerard’s name on the puff of every exhale. With one final stroke of his tongue, Gerard pulls back. 

“Don’t want you to come yet,” he breathes, getting up on his knees and leaning to reach the drawer of the nightstand. His fingers close around the tube of lube and he makes a satisfied noise before arms wrap around him, twisting them both so his back thuds against the mattress.

Frank looks down at him with a sharp smile. “Got you where I want you,” he says.

“Not until you’re riding me, you don’t,” Gerard reminds him, breathing and trying to ignore the way Frank’s damp, silky thighs feel against his own, one of the few places on Frank’s body that’s soft and tender.

Frank clicks the lube open and drizzles it over his own fingers. “About that....” He’s - _oh, fuck_ \- reaching behind himself and fingering himself, getting himself nice and slick and ready, then bringing one sloppy hand back around to close around Gerard’s cock. Gerard bucks, only his death grip on the bed linens keeping him still. Frank’s grip feels obscenely good. And it’s just his hand.

“About what?” Gerard chokes out.

“It’s about time,” Frank rasps, raising up on his knees and lining Gerard up with one hand, splaying the fingers of the other across Gerard’s ribs. “To see,” he gasps, pushing down with his hips to take Gerard in. “This teamwork thing,” Frank’s head tips back as Gerard fills him up, his slide down slow and tight and torturously good. “In action.” He gives his hips a vicious little twist as he bottoms out, and Gerard and he both gasp in unison.

“Frank,” Gerard whines. His hands fasten onto Frank’s hips, fingers carefully not quite tight enough to hurt. He might have misjudged, though, by the way Frank hisses and his hips jerk. Maybe he’ll have new bruises tomorrow. Gerard finds he really won’t mind, knowing they’re his marks. He’ll kiss them later. He’ll kiss a lot of things later.

Gerard wants his mouth all over Frank’s body, tasting every inch he hasn’t yet. But first, he wants to come, and he wants to see Frank come too. See the look in his eyes when he finally lets go of something. 

“Frank,” he chants, fucking up into Frank as Frank grinds his hips down in the same rhythm. “Need you. Partner.”

“Night and day,” Frank says with another groan. A flush is creeping down his chest now, mantling him in blotchy red, hot, insistent, alive. 

“Either. Both. Always.” He closes a hand around Frank’s cock, giving it a few more strokes, and he can feel it inside, the clenching of Frank’s body echoing his arch, his helpless gasp, the hot spill of come into Gerard’s hand. He gives Frank a few more strokes, gentling them to milk him through the orgasm, then presses the sticky mess against Frank’s chest, spreading his fingers over Frank’s heart. He clamps down with his other hand, holding Frank’s hips against his as he bucks up one final time and comes.

They don’t talk after, really, moving around the room in tandem to clean up and redress, and as Frank hides his secrets in layers of armor Gerard stops to watch. Frank stops too, meeting Gerard’s eyes and pressing his fingertips to the shield on Gerard’s chest for a moment. “Stop wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” Gerard tells him. 

“Yes, you were. I’m an asshole, Gerard, and you’ll be sorry long before I will.”

“I won’t.” Frank stirs, then, looking like he’s about to reply, and Gerard leans in and kisses him silent. “I won’t. I know who and what you are.”

This time, Frank’s the one who leans in. 

When they make their way back into the Fortress proper, there’s a message blinking on the communicator screen. “Bets?” Frank asks, gloved finger hovering over the button.

“Alicia,” Gerard says.

He’s right. She’s been pressed into monitor duty, it looks like, and the light of the viewscreens glints off her breastplate and tiara as she leans in and speaks softly to the receiver. “I hate to interrupt -” and her eyes betray a glint of amusement for just a moment before returning to her serious Amazonian mien. “But Superman and Batman are needed at the Watchtower. About two hours ago.” She pauses. “Gabe follows me on the monitor duty roster. I’d suggest you make your return before that happens.”

They look at each other. Frank’s lips twitch. Gerard reaches out and taps a button to pause the message, then another button to transmit a reply. “Copy, Wonder Woman. ETA from the Fortress is … soon.” Frank chuckles and Gerard shrugs, then leans in for one final kiss. 

He’ll risk it. There’s something to be said for being Batman and Superman, after all.


End file.
